


Keeping

by Glitter_Lisp



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 04:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6939067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitter_Lisp/pseuds/Glitter_Lisp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benny knows the stories behind (almost) all of Sam's scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping

Sam has scars. All of them he’s collected in the last four years, since Cas yanked him out of the Cage (it’s a thought that bothers Benny to no end; if Sam looks like this now, how many scars must he have had before his body was completely healed?). He catalogues them sometimes, when he’s got Sam stretched and naked and gasping. Moves down his body slow and traces every little mark with his mouth and fingers.

Rough, permanently red skin on the back of his shoulder: got thrown onto the burning bones of an angry spirit.

Numerous long, thin lines on his forearms, some fresher than others: testing to make sure he wasn’t a shifter.

Four thick, even slash marks on his hip: Sam doesn’t remember. Maybe a werewolf? Or a hellhound?

Tiny silver lines scattered randomly across the insides of his thighs: Benny doesn’t know, because by the time he gets down there Sam is usually begging, which is pretty damn distracting.

They bother him. By all rights, they’re small enough that they should have healed over without any scarring, so they must have been kept open. It’s possible that the scabs would have just popped off on their own, rubbing against each other whenever Sam moved his legs, but Benny’s human doesn’t seem the type to leave his wounds to fester. So Benny wonders, and then he forgets to wonder because he’s usually a little too distracted.

Until today. It just slipped out of his mouth as he and Sam lay in bed together, touching each other slowly and gently. There was nothing sexual about it; sometimes they just needed to feel that they were both still there.

“What are these ones?”

“What ones?” Sam asks, but Benny can hear his heart pounding and feel the blood rushing underneath his fingertips where they’re resting on the scars.

“These ones here. They’re old.”

“What’s it matter, then? They’re old. It happened a long time ago.”

“What happened?”

Sam slowly curls into Benny, and Benny wraps his arms around him. He knows it’s a good sign, that Sam is pushing closer instead of away even though this is clearly a personal thing. “Do I have to?” he asks wearily.

“Course not,” Benny says. “You don’t hafta do anything, Sam. I just wonder where they came from, that’s all.”

Sam is silent for several seconds before he says quietly, “I made them.”

Benny pauses, waits for an explanation. There’s only silence. “Come again, cher?”

“It was after I got my soul back,” Sam says, and Benny knows this part of the story. “Things were, well. And Dean taught me that the quickest way to get rid of a hallucination was to…” He takes a deep breath. “Was to hurt myself. And I know he didn’t mean for it to go on the way it did, it was supposed to be a last resort, but it was easier to just start out with the pain, y'know? And keep it there. To remember. But Dean didn’t know.”

“That’s why they’re between your legs,” Benny realizes, slowly stroking a hand up and down Sam’s back. “So he wouldn’t see.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured it was the last place he’d look,” Sam snorts. “Anyways, um, I just sort of kept it up. For a while. Until Amelia. She found out, and she helped. And a friend of hers helped, I mean, a professional. So it’s been over a year now and usually I don’t even want to; it’s barely a problem, it’s just sort of a thing that happened, but doesn’t happen anymore, and-”

“Hey, hey, sugar,” Benny soothes, scooting down the bed so he’s eye to eye with Sam. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“I don’t do it anymore,” Sam says, voice choked and eyes wet. “I don’t.”

“I know,” Benny says, carding his fingers through Sam’s hair. “It’s all right, cher, I know you don’t. But if you ever did, you could come, uh, talk to me? If you wanted to? Because I think mine are a little different, but… I’ve got my scars too.” Rows of tiny pinpricks running up his arms. A drop of dead man’s blood to cancel out every drop of living, balancing the scales, keeping himself clean the only way he knew how.

“You’re not alone, Sam.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, tipping his head forward so their foreheads touch. “I know.”


End file.
